You'd probably need a BS CS before going for a decent MS CS. The four tracks in front of you sound like, in order of probability: 1. Helpdesk Manager 2. System Administrator 3. Web Designer 4. Software Developer/Web Developer System administrator is a jump you can make with a few certifications and/or a bit of luck. Web designer is a pretty full field, and it tops out pretty quickly. Web developer requires a touch more school in most cases. Get another helpdesk job. Bounce between a few until you find one that's lower stress, and lets you learn what you want to learn in downtime. Strongly consider system administration, as you can get there from where you are the most quickly, especially in a company willing to promote from helpdesk to junior admin.

You drop them, and they don't break. That seems - for many, including myself - the killer feature. For internal laptop drives, they take less energy, so my laptop lasts longer. And on my laptop, since it's not my primary machine, I don't need an enormous drive. That said, you were right; it's hard justifying extra cost for a small speed bump, but that's a less-than-honest way to phrase this particular choice.

I'll take your job, you take mine. If your boss doesn't allow you to stay home when you're sick, blame the boss, blame the company, but don't blame the poor schlub who has the choice to do the normally right thing... or lose your job.

Honestly, the dev tools for the XBox 360 are wonderful, and the ones for the PS3 were kind of crap at the start, which seriously impeded the number of games written for the PS3 that weren't simply ports of 360 titles. That said, besides the lack of modern game development IDEs... console manufacturers typically take a loss on every console sold. It's hard to come up with an open source alternative when the mainstream is already cheaper to get started.

I might approach it with more tact, but that would seem the easiest approach. "Someone killed my old laptop last week, and I really don't want to let people use this one" might be a decent start, unless they know you well enough to spot the lie. If they know you well enough to spot the lie, odds are it's probably okay to just let them use it.

Anywhere without other people distracting me. Microsoft's Project Manager book pointed out that developers work best if they're interrupted once an hour or less. And they're damn right.

A web designer builds the graphic part of the interface; in this case, exactly what you've said. Web UI Designer would be another choice. This also implies they're designing the interface, instead of simply implementing preexisting interface standards. A web developer writes code to make the interface interactive; most web developers would be fairly insulted by the phrase "oh, you do HTML?"

Rent it to someone who wants to talk to women who are making an excuse to talk to them. Step 2: ??? Step 3: PROFIT

I might be the anecdotal outlier, but I've run Windows daily since 95, and haven't had any problems since the Windows 98 beta test. I think most of the problems I've seen are folks getting viruses from clicking through to "get a smaller penis" or "sell us cialis" advertisements. I've never clicked on those; I don't have any cialis, and my penis is small enough. That said, it'd be awful nice if random webpages wouldn't consistently destroy your computer.

The problem with older developers is that many hadn't kept up their skillset. I knew one woman - now about 60 - who had gone for the equivalent of an associates degree in feeding punchcards to the computers of the day. No matter how many times she interviews, her skills are dead, and she'd need to start over. If you're good with general theory, keep up a modern skillset, and interview at least moderately well, you will never lack for work through your retirement years. Go for the degree, but also make sure that it gives you both a decent basis in theory, and some hands on experience with modern skills. A CS degree won't often teach you all you need to know, and that's important to recognize that you'll need to pick up other languages and tools yourself along the way.

Cricket Wireless, which is a super-regional provider, is $50/month for unlimited local, long distance, web access, text messages, and calls to Canada and Mexico, last I saw. The best phone they have is a RAZR, with no smartphones, but their USB/wireless card, at $40/month, is a steal for unlimited data if you live/work somewhere where they have coverage.

If you can't replace a relatively inexpensive employee, you're one traffic accident away from being out of business entirely. Let your competitor take that risk. "It's a gamble, like all of life, you roll the dice and take your chances." The odds of your competition hiring the guy - through a noncompete clause - and him being the tipping point of sending you out of business? Miniscule. The odds of a daily accident, or family problems, or the employee just leaving for greener pastures? Enormous.

"Equal justice" would be giving the judges the combined sentences of everyone they unfairly sentenced. Save voter fraud and treason, this seems the greatest possible corruption of our government.

Honestly, the Millikan experiment was great; manually determination of the charge on an electron is doable and interesting. And hey, it's the experiment's 100th birthday this year!

http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2009/02/autism_and_the_mmr_vaccine.html A psychiatrist explains why the original link between autism and the MMR vaccine was absolute junk science of the worst sort. It was a career jump for someone who made a fake link, and had already fudged the underlying data to boot. The fact that the guy isn't in jail is kind of amazing.